Two weeks to go

Another prediction for you – it will be mostly dry on Shetland this October. How do I know that? Easy – I’ve just spent a ridiculous amount of money on a new coat!

As usual at this time of year most birders get obsessed with the weather. I have a whole Firefox folder full of bookmarked weather sites, and I know that I will look at every one of them several times a day from now until I walk out of the front door to leave in two weeks’ time. A couple of sites do a 14 day forecast, and predictably they totally disagree at the moment as to what it’s going to be doing over the next two weeks. Netweather.tv is showing it being almost constantly between north-east and south-east; Metcheck, on the other hand, reckons it will be mostly westerly or southerly, then going northerly at the beginning of October and westerly again by the 3rd!

I don’t know why they bother doing the 14 day forecast to be honest – it is completely impossible to predict the weather that far ahead. For instance, for the 3rd of October, Metcheck is currently saying it will be 18mph westerly on Shetland, whilst netweather says 5mph easterly. I know which one I’d rather believe...